Thursday, February 24, 2011

I was upstairs putting laundry away the other day when I heard The Who blaring downstairs, and lots of laughter. I went down and found Logan and Jordan jumping on my bed, and having a great time. Jordan had turned on my clock radio, which is where the music was coming from.

After the song was over, I herded the boys out of my room. In a few minutes, I realized Jordan wasn't in the living room. But where was he? I couldn't find him anywhere. Then I looked in my room and saw two little feet at the end of my bed. He'd gone back in there and had become stuck in the space between my mattress and the foot of my bed. Silly monkey.

The best part? Now that he realizes he can get stuck in there, he KEEPS DOING IT.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

I have tried a number of times to make homemade pizza, but it never turned out right. Usually, my dough was soggy and floppy in the middle. I tried canned dough, dry mix dough and frozen dough, but it never came out quite right.

Well, my friend Eva is always raving about her husband Jeff's (inexpensive!) homemade pizza, so I asked for the recipe. Turns out, it's been requested so much that Jeff had the recipe all ready to go on facebook.

So, I picked up a ball of frozen dough and some sauce, cheese, mini turkey pepperonis and black olives. I also got some corn meal to put on my pizza stone so the dough wouldn't stick, and I chopped up some ham, turkey, broccoli, onions and red bell pepper that were in my fridge. (Bonus, I had some extra toppings that I used in some eggs the next morning. Yum!)

I let the dough thaw overnight in the fridge, and then I put it in a warm oven to rise for a while.

It rose, but I should have covered it, because it got a little dry on top which made it kind of funky to stretch out. I was afraid I might have ruined it.

I made a quarter of the pizza for everyone in the house, with the toppings they like most. Ham, turkey, pepperoni and LOTS of black olives for Logan, a little bit of everything and a TON of broccoli for me, "everything lite" minus black olives for Jordan and everything but black olives and not too much broccoli for Hubby.

Then it went in the oven. Jordan was really hungry and plastered himself to the oven door to watch it cook.

It came out looking and smelling great.

I was afraid it wouldn't be good. I was expecting it would not pass the Logan test. He only likes Little Caesars pizza. At first he refused to try it "because it looks GROSS!"

I asked him to please try a bite. He was surprised that it was good. The more he ate, the more he commented on how good it was. "This is DARN good pizza, Mom!" Oh yeah!

All four of us ate that entire pizza. All that was left was a scattering of cornmeal.

It really was good!

Try Jeff's recipe if you want to make a crowd-pleasing but not costly homemade pizza.

Maybe one day I'll learn to actually make crust. For now, the frozen stuff is good enough for me!

Monday, February 7, 2011

I was going to write a looking back post but I don't feel like getting weepy right now. I already was crying when I wrote my newspaper column about him this morning. I might do one in the next day or two. He has changed so much in the past two years.

Two years ago right now, my husband left me in a PIT of a hospital room (I got induced in this closet-like hellhole of a room) to go out to lunch with his dad. The nice hospital people let me have a halfway edible meal and a shower. I got out of the shower and back into bed, settled back onto my pillow and rode the waves of the contractions I'd been having since, oh, six a.m. Suddenly I felt two weird pops in the side of my belly and gush! My water had broken on its own. Then the fun--and the pain--began. I called Hubby and they moved me to the luxury suite to have the baby. I still had almost 8 hours to go, though, and they were the tough hours. But anyway...

This morning, we dropped Logan off at school and then came home. I decided it would be fun to take Jordan on a little date, just him and me. I decided to take him to the Farm House restaurant for breakfast because they have a fantastic fruit plate. I craved and consumed obscene amounts of fruit when I was pregnant with him. Especially honeycrisp apples and Romeo peaches. Now, he eats SO MUCH fruit. He wants it all day, every day. Fruit at each meal, fruit in between. I knew he'd love the Farm House fruit plate, and I was right.

First, we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some food, because he wanted chicken and corn on the cob for dinner. (I asked him, and he said he wanted "en" which is chicken. He only says the ends of most of the words he knows. It's interesting to translate.) And then when we were in the frozen aisle he spotted frozen corn on the cob and pointed at it hollering "cone! cone!" so I got some. I also got a can of Grands reduced fat biscuits and a very small carrot cake. I also got suckered into buying a Jurassic Attack monster truck toy.

Then we went to the restaurant. He played with his truck and crayons for a few

but before long he got very restless and started throwing a fit. I thought we were going to have to get our food to go, but as soon as he saw the fruit plate, he was THRILLED. He especially loved the watermelon slices, holding one triumphantly in the air and yelling out "OOOOOOOhhh!"

He Stuffed. His. Face. with that fruit.

Couldn't even stop eating it to pose for a pic with mommy.

But he sure was happy with that meal. Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, banana, pineapple and strawberries, with a side of banana bread. I also got the kids' scrambled egg and sausage and toast meal and he ate the sausage and half the toast. I got the egg, half the toast and some of the fruit. It was a perfect breakfast date.

Even better, I had missed the sign that kids eat free on Mondays with the purchase of an adult meal, so I only had to pay for the fruit plate!

I used to do little dates like this with Logan but aside from an overnight campout last summer, I haven't done much one-on-one with Jordan. It was really nice to just sit there and have a conversation with him.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

So, the giant Snowbomination we were to get last night? Well, we got some snow. Probably in the 10 inch range, with a few more inches falling today. And it got kinda windy, causing drifting. I don't think it's nearly the amazing storm the news channels made it out to be.

Anyway, no school today. Kids at home. Snow to play in, etc.

We played, and then came back inside and on days like this, well, I always want to bake cookies.

But if I bake cookies, I'll EAT cookies. And what's more, I'll eat several cookies worth of dough before they're even done. I can't help myself. I love cookie dough and I love cookies. That's why I never make them.

But Logan's got a cold and I thought my kiddies would like some, so I decided to make some cookies. I didn't want to make a lot (again, 'cause I'd eat them), and I don't generally keep ingredients like flour and sugar on hand because we just don't use those things around here very often. I had about a cup of flour in the cupboard, though, and the honey jar had just a little left in the bottom, so I found a recipe in my Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking cookbook and halved it, and then adapted it to what I had on hand, and wouldn't ya know, they turned out pretty darn tasty! Logan even likes them, and he's kinda picky about sweets.

So, here's my recipe, if you want to make some. They have a bit of a cakey consistency and are NOT super-sweet, but just sweet enough. They have a little butter and chocolate in them, making them kinda naughty, but they have some really healthy stuff in them, too, so I feel better about letting my kids (and yeah, myself. I have eaten several) eat them.

Then fold in:2/3 cup chocolate chips (I chopped up a chocolate Santa we had from Christmas)1/2 cup muesli (I used Bob's Red Mill brand. The original recipe called for rolled oats and nuts. I thought using the muesli instead would be good and I was right.)1/4 cup unsweetened coconut

Bake on greased cookie sheet (all I had was olive oil, so I just sprayed a little bit on the pan with my olive oil mister) for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

They don't spread out much, so you don't have to put them really far apart on the pan.

This made somewhere around 2 dozen small cookies. Hard to keep track when you eat dough.